Thailand suspends incoming passenger flights to fight coronavirus

Thailand has temporarily banned all passenger flights from landing in the country to curb the outbreak of the new coronavirus, the country's aviation agency said on Friday.

The ban on incoming flights came into effect on Friday morning and will run until the end of Monday, the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand said in an order published late on Friday. Anyone arriving on a flight that took off before the order came into effect will need to be quarantined for 14 days upon arrival in Thailand, the order said.

It came just hours after a commotion at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport when more than 100 Thai nationals arrived on different flights on Friday, a Thai immigration officer told Reuters. "A public health officer allowed them to quarantine themselves at home. There was a commotion because they said they weren't aware they had to be put in a state quarantine," the officer said.

Thailand, which has reported 1,978 cases of the coronavirus and 19 deaths so far, wants to avoid importing more cases. Since March 1, there has been a rising number of people who were infected abroad before returning home. The authorities have put nearly 2,000 people who came into contact with them in quarantine.

The ban on incoming air travel came a day after the Thai government asked citizens abroad to delay returning home until after April 15 in a bid to stop imported cases. Thailand has six international airports, including in the capital Bangkok, which is under a curfew from Friday, and the popular tourist island Phuket, which was planning to shut its airport from April 10 to April 30.

Earlier on Friday, the country reported 103 new coronavirus cases and four more deaths.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)